The large production sites for hydrocarbon (natural gas and oil) pipelines serving for the economical long-distance delivery of very large quantities of hydrocarbon. In the interest of economical investment and operation of the pipelines, pressure-intensifying stations are used by (e.g. at 100-150 km distance) which compensate the frictional and other resistance of the pipeline and (in case of natural gas) reduce the volume of the medium to be carried by keeping up the correct pressure.
A large number of pressure-intensifying stations are required by a pipeline several thousand km long. On worldwide scale this would amount to several thousand stations. Compressors (pumps) used in the pressure-intensifying stations are driven by power generators operated with the conveyed hydrocarbon. Thus, operation of a large number of pressure-intensifying stations--depending on the length of the pipeline--involves substantial consumption by the delivery system itself, thereby reducing the quantity of the salable hydrocarbon. The main reason for the high internal consumption is that gas turbines of the open circulation type are used nearly exclusively at the present for driving of the compressors (pumps), their energy efficiency being only 20-30%, so that 70-80% of the consumed hydrocarbon is not utilized. The known natural-gas pipeline of Orenburg may be mentioned as an example, along the whose 2800-km length 22 pressure-intensifying stations are operating with consumption of more than 15% (4.5 thousand million m.sup.3 /year) of the carried total natural-gas quantity.